Columbia Encyclopedia

Search results

500 results found

Zorn, Anders Leonhard

(Encyclopedia)Zorn, Anders Leonhard änˈdərs lāˈo͞onärd sôrn [key], 1860–1920, Swedish painter, etcher, and sculptor. Zorn's early and phenomenal popularity was sustained throughout his career as a portrai...

Salvian

(Encyclopedia)Salvian sălˈvēən [key], fl. 5th cent., Christian writer of Gaul. His Latin name was Salvianus. He was a monk and priest of Lérins (from c.424) and became a renowned preacher and teacher of rhetor...

Hartley, Marsden

(Encyclopedia)Hartley, Marsden, 1877–1943, American painter widely considered the first great American modernist of the 20th cent., b. Lewiston, Maine. He was educated in Cleveland, but early in his career (1899)...

Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Vonnegut, Kurt, Jr. vŏnˈəgət [key] 1922–2007, American novelist, b. Indianapolis. After serving in World War II, he worked as a police reporter and wrote short stories for mainstream and science...

Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty

(Encyclopedia)Chopin, Kate O'Flaherty shōˌpănˈ [key], 1851–1904, American author, b. St. Louis. Of Creole-Irish descent, she married (1870) a Louisiana businessman and lived with him in Natchitoches parish an...

Howe, Julia Ward

(Encyclopedia)Howe, Julia Ward, 1819–1910, American author and social reformer, b. New York City. Although unhappily married, she assisted her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, in his philanthropic projects and in ed...

Lodge, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Lodge, Thomas, 1558?–1625, English writer, grad. Oxford, 1577. After abandoning the study of law for literature, he published (c.1580) his defense of poetry and other arts, usually called Honest Exc...

osteopathy

(Encyclopedia)osteopathy ŏstēŏpˈəthē [key], practice of therapy based on manipulation of bones and muscles. This school of medicine, founded by A. T. Still in 1874, maintains that the normal body produces for...

Lynch, David (Keith)

(Encyclopedia)Lynch, David (Keith), 1946–, American film and television writer, producer, and director, b. Missoula, Mont. Trained as a painter, he studied at the Corcoran School of Art, Washington, D.C. (1963–...

Wilson, August

(Encyclopedia)Wilson, August, 1945–2005, American playwright and poet, b. Pittsburgh as Frederick August Kittel, Jr. Largely self-educated, Wilson first attracted wide critical attention with his Broadway debut, ...